


false sunrise

by hell_swan



Series: l'ètoile [1]
Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Trans Female Character, as happy a story as you can have in yharnam, eighteen hundred words of smut, i don't think the doll is cis but she remains fully clothed so it doesn't matter, two thousand words of setup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 00:53:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13283478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hell_swan/pseuds/hell_swan
Summary: "Want." Jeanne says, rolling the word on her tongue as she leans back, caught between a hunter's kit and the Doll. She's resting on gloved palms, shoulders hunched up around her neck, and there's a lack of pain in the position that makes her eyes sting with tears. Jeanne grins and feels it break, voice rough as she says "want is a dangerous thing, for a hunter.""A hunter before you once told me that want is a cousin of love." The Doll says, and Jeanne rolls her eyes, because that's alehouse poetry if she ever heard it, and not particularly good work at that. The Doll must notice (that's what she does, Jeanne thinks, she notices and studies and waits) because she titters, says "the full meaning escapes me. But love, good hunter, I understand perfectly."





	false sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> a) Jeanne is a trans woman, leave now if you don't like that
> 
> b) this was supposed to be short
> 
> c) Jeanne is also French. Enjoy

The dream greets Jeanne like a hangover - swift and without mercy, fog wrapped around her ankles and the moon high in the sky. The unintelligible chatter of the messengers fills her ears next, joined by a strange wind that rattles the trees at the edges of the graveyard, and then, finally -

"Ah! Welcome home, good hunter." 

The Doll, straight backed and hands folded as it - as  _she_  - looks at Jeanne and smiles. The ice blue of her eyes reflects the weird light of the dream (of the lamp that rested beside her still body that first time), turning them gold. Jeanne leans on her cane, the phantom of ripping teeth on her neck, and nods in return. Neither of them speak after that - the Doll as is her habit and Jeanne because she still isn't used to feeling her life drip away to fill the body she inhabits now.

(Because that's how she thinks of it, how she  _has_  to think about it lest the truths of this mad town warp her waking mind. Better to see herself as a liquid to be poured back and forth over the stumbling block of a nightmare.)

Jeanne sighs and jerks her her head to one side and then the other. The crack her neck produces echoes in the near silence, and some of the messengers nearby fall over each other in surprise. The Doll giggles, pressing one of her porcelain hands to her mouth. Jeanne eyes its segmented joints, her grip on her cane tightening. Of all the things she's seen - men twisted into monsters and hounds with their own flayed skin hanging from their bones - the Doll unsettles her the most.

Yharnam is a city of awesome terror, and yet Jeanne feels something inside of her twisting in on itself whenever she watches the Doll. It's the same something she'd felt before putting the mad hunter down among tombstones and slaughtering whatever the woman in the cathedral had been. It's a sense at the edge of Jeanne's mind, a sharpening of vision that she can barely contemplate possessing. It's - it's enraging, is what it is, and if Jeanne was any less  _hunter_  she would rip the automaton limb from perfectly crafted limb.

The Doll hums to herself, sitting down on the low wall to the left of the workshop staircase, patting the empty space next to her. Jeanne debates accepting the invitation for all of a few seconds - the dream hasn't hurt her yet - and stumbles forward, unused to being able to put weight on her right leg. The cane she wields while awake is more than a weapon, even if she's killed a small town's worth of men over and over with it. Messengers lurch upwards at the heel of her boots, and Jeanne snorts at their eagerness.

"The little ones worry over you, good hunter." The Doll says, turning to look at Jeanne as she drops herself onto the wall. The Doll winces, reaching out to brush her leather clad shoulder, saying "as do I."

Jeanne flinches at the touch and wrestles with the impulse to bury the tip of her cane into the Doll's stomach. The Doll doesn't seem to notice, or is too polite to mention it, and starts humming again. Jeanne takes off her hat, setting it to the side, and then lays her gun down with it, the two weights freeing for entirely different reasons. Her dark hair tumbles down the back of her great coat and her shoulders thank her, all while the Doll watches with affectionate curiosity.

"Have you never seen a woman undress?" Jeanne says, eyebrow arched and voice dry. The Doll cocks her head to the side and Jeanne bites the inside of her cheek, because it's an adorable motion. But like everything in this blasted city, it's the echoes of actions that matter and tug at her heart. Jeanne's wife used to watch her peel away layers of armor after a long day among the silver tongued vipers their home called good men.

Christine, unlike the Doll, would  _say_  something, would remind Jeanne that the world outside was the farce and the one they built inside their bedroom the reality. It took a sweeping plague to turn that truth on its head, but for awhile, before - well, for awhile, Jeanne had been happy. 

Now, she ignores the pit in her stomach and shrugs off her great coat, leaving her in a buttoned up vest and a white shirt beneath it, all as crisp and fresh as if it had just been brought in from the line. Her mask is loose around her neck, and she tugs it off, draping both it and her great coat over her gun. They almost succeed in hiding the bulky, occasionally misfiring weapon; they almost let Jeanne forget what she is, for a moment so short it may as well not exist.

"You'd think," Jeanne says, letting her cane rest against the inside of her leg as she slowly plucks tool and ammo belts from her person, "that whoever made you would want a good conversation."

"Oh, good hunter." The Doll says, shaking her head and looking skyward for a moment. Her eyes change and lose their fire glow, the moon above them fat and silver and reflecting off of the pale mirrors. The shift turns them grey, but a cold grey, one that was left out in the frigid night to develop a layer of rime. "It is you who made me what I am. And it is you who must decide a want."

"Want." Jeanne says, rolling the word on her tongue as she leans back, caught between a hunter's kit and the Doll. She's resting on gloved palms, shoulders hunched up around her neck, and there's a lack of pain in the position that makes her eyes sting with tears. Jeanne grins and feels it break, voice rough as she says "want is a dangerous thing, for a hunter."

"A hunter before you once told me that want is a cousin of love." The Doll says, and Jeanne rolls her eyes, because that's alehouse poetry if she ever heard it, and not particularly good work at that. The Doll must notice (that's what she does, Jeanne thinks, she notices and studies and  _waits_ ) because she titters, says "the full meaning escapes me. But love, good hunter, I understand perfectly."

Jeanne swears her heart stills. Even the messengers are quiet. All that remains is her own breathing and the clattering of branches further down the path. She swallows the sudden lump in her throat and says "you've made mention of that, yes."

"Then I ask again, good hunter: would you ever think to love me?" The Doll says, her smile a sad, drooping thing, as if she knows the answer that's curled on Jeanne's tongue. She reaches out again, her fingers hanging in the space between them, barely an inch away from touching Jeanne's bare arm. "Could you  _want_  to love me, as I love you?"

This isn't the first time the Doll has made such overtures. It probably won't be the last, so long as Jeanne continues to hunt and kill and fail and die. Jeanne's refused each offer, first with stuttering and blushing, then with tight smiles and busied preparation. The offer preceding this moment shattered Jeanne's veneer of civility, sending her into a screaming fury, and the Doll hasn't mentioned it since (she hasn't made herself vulnerable again, hasn't prostrated herself before a bound, aching muzzle poorly hidden by leather and wool.)

Yet, somehow, so much is different now. The air between them is charged, as if it's filled with the writhing blue lightning that some of the larger beasts wear like ribbons. The Doll is waiting, eyes tracing Jeanne's stark profile and making her itch from the attention. The  _something_  in her is whispering that Yharnam's night is long yet, and the exhaustion beginning to settle into her bones is nothing compared to what will come. No one would find fault with a hunter hoarding what little pleasure they could as the Hunt dragged on.

Jeanne clenches her left hand (the one farthest from the Doll), the leather of her glove whispering over the hidden burr of a tarnished ring. It's been - God, how long  _has_  it been, since Jeanne left her burning city, the smoke thick with plague and rot and Christine? Long enough for the memories of their engagement to feel like a fable. Long enough to make the weight of her wedding band feel like a heavy stone tied around her neck. Too long, Jeanne thinks. Too long, and somehow not long enough.

"I don't know about love. I don't believe it can exist in this place." Jeanne says, curling in on herself, her hair falling like a curtain between them. The Doll is quiet (the Doll is  _waiting_ ), unnatural in her patience, unyielding in her grace. Jeanne lets out a shuddering breath, feeling surrender rush in to fill up the space, and says "you're welcome to prove me wrong."

"Oh, dear hunter." The Doll says, hand finally,  _finally_  falling to grasp her arm. The fingers are warm, warmer than they have any right to be, and it makes Jeanne gasp. She rocks forward, a flush blooming high on her cheeks, and the Doll traces her fingertips along the corded muscle of Jeanne's forearm. A soft chuckle escapes her, and she says "so tense and tired."

Jeanne makes a small noise in the back of her throat, unused to a gentle touch after so many introductions to the savage customs of Yharnam. The Doll tut-tuts in return, bringing her other hand to task, sliding both down to Jeanne's wrist. Her glove is tugged off, the cool night air refreshing on her sweating palm. The Doll murmurs something that Jeanne doesn't catch, and it quickly doesn't matter, because her lips brush across Jeanne's knuckles.

Jeanne's stomach clenches, instinct warring with fatigue, and it's a close contest. She wonders if the Doll knows how close she came to having her throat torn out, and then has her thoughts obliterated by small kisses on the back of her hand. The Doll's lips are warm, like a pillow freshly slept on, and Jeanne shudders as the Doll flips her hand over to kiss the center of her palm. There's a spark ricocheting through Jeanne's rib cage, pinging upward until it escapes her mouth in the form of a desperate whimper.

Until that sound, the Doll's kisses had been chaste flower buds, tightly closed and shy in exploration. But Jeanne's voice is like a spur, and the Doll's next kiss is open mouthed, hot and wet on her hand. It's like holding a heart, like swinging her cane's whip and being showered in gore, like, like, - the Doll drags her mouth to Jeanne's wrist and  _nibbles_ , teeth pressing on her skin and drawing out another whimper. This one dies in the shadow of a moan, one that rises high as the Doll sucks a slow path across her wrist.

Jeanne tilts her head back, eyes closed as her hair gathers on either side of her neck. She can't look down at the Doll's worship, not with the way her blood is pounding in her ears. It would be too easy to  _twitch_  and rip into the Doll's face, fingers curved and brutal like a common beast. The push and pull is already starting to wear on Jeanne, excitement doused by a hunter's paranoia. It's not fair, and she bites at her lower lip, shoulders trembling as the Doll presses one last kiss on the tips of her fingers.

"Open your eyes." The Doll says, brushing a lock of hair behind Jeanne's ear. She shakes her head, another small, pathetic noise crawling up from the depths of her mouth. The Doll grazes the outer edge of Jeanne's ear with the tip of her nose, and says "let me be your strength, this one time. Open your eyes, dear hunter."

The Doll's breath (a revelation, because Jeanne's never _seen_  her chest rise and fall) hits Jeanne's ear, sending a bolt of heat racing to the apex of her thighs. She groans in desperation, free hand grasping futilely at the stone beneath then. The Doll keeps  _nuzzling_ , and her lips are perilously close to the skin of Jeanne's neck. She groans again, because the Doll's lips are now  _on_  her neck, kissing behind her ear and further down. Jeanne's heart thumps like her gun, explosive and loud with a kickback that's somehow twice as strong.

Jeanne opens her eyes, panting like she's just ducked under a rusted pitchfork, and feels the Doll smile against her throat.

The Doll kisses Jeanne's neck like she does all other things - with a purpose, leaving a trail of aching marks that end at the other side of Jeanne's neck, low at the junction. Once there, she bites down, and Jeanne moans, hips bucking as the Doll's tongue swirls over her skin, exerting a pressure that sends lightning dancing along Jeanne's spine. She wants to touch the Doll, to tear her away and press her closer, but can't make up her mind. Instead, she focuses on her breathing, arousal building in her belly like a roaring fire.

An eternity or a moment passes - time is strange in Yharnam, especially in the dream - and the Doll pulls back, licking at the bruise she's undoubtedly left behind. She shifts so that she's facing Jeanne, looking as unruffled as ever. Their legs brush, the Doll's knees on Jeanne's outer thigh, and Jeanne shivers, feeling another wave of heat wash over her. The Doll brings her hands to the buttons of Jeanne's vest, laying them on either side (just above her breasts), and says "may I?"

Jeanne nods, not trusting herself to speak, not when the Doll makes quick work of her vest's buttons and leans in to drag it off of her shoulders. Another series of hot, hard kisses on Jeanne's neck have her moaning with shameless abandon, the Doll slowly unbuttoning her shirt all the while. Soon Jeanne's torso is bare to the night, a dirty, frayed series of bandages the only thing protecting her last shred of modesty. The Doll is almost reverent as she traces the bound curve of Jeanne's breasts, the soft weight of her fingers making Jeanne mewl.

"My dear, beautiful hunter." The Doll says, kissing Jeanne's bare shoulder and pulling another full body shiver out of her. She moves a hand down to Jeanne's stomach, fingertips digging into taut muscle, and says "what is it you desire?"

Jeanne keens. There's no other word for the high, sharp sound she produces, as if she's a harp and the Doll plucked one of her strings. It's embarrassing, how easily she's making Jeanne collapse in on herself; turning a steadfast hunter into a quivering pile of  _need._ The Doll is motionless, waiting, always so careful to ensure that this is what she wants. It's sweet, though Jeanne feels as if her entire body is throbbing and she just wants to be  _touched, God damn it_.

"My. My bindings. Please, my -  _please_." Jeanne says, words rough as sandpaper. The Doll kisses her shoulder again, and starts to unravel the bandages, murmuring in Jeanne's ear the whole time. Finally, the last of them are pulled away, leaving Jeanne naked from the waist up, save for the glove on her left hand. The Doll kisses the hollow of her throat and Jeanne gasps, says "oh, fuck.  _Fuck_."

The Doll chuckles, licking and nipping at Jeanne's collarbone, making her sob from the sensation. She wants to grab the Doll by the hair and force her down, until her mouth and its scorching heat are hovering above Jeanne's lap. But there's a hunger coiled in the back of her mind, one that makes it feel as if she's full of wicked claws itching for a canvas of skin to defile and paint red. Jeanne can feel the  _something_  inside of her sharpening to a point, an inhuman focus that looks the beast in its starving eye.

The Doll chooses that moment to wrap her lips around one of Jeanne's hard, aching nipples, her tongue flicking across the stiff nub. Jeanne screams, pushing herself further into the Doll's mouth as her back arches. The lightning gathered on Jeanne's spine coalesces and strikes when the Doll sucks on her nipple, tongue swirling around it like it's a sweet confection. The building fire in Jeanne's belly finally erupts, and she can't stop her hips from pumping in small circles.

"Please." Jeanne says, mewling, hair beginning to stick to her sweating forehead. The Doll hums around her nipple, still torturing it with her stroking tongue, and Jeanne's answering moan is a wanton, filthy thing. She gulps down air, wishing it could renew her composure, and says " _please_ , I need. I need more."

"Oh?" The Doll says, muffled by Jeanne's breast. She pulls away, a shining string of saliva stretched between Jeanne's nipple and her lips, one that breaks when the Doll smiles. "Then you will have more, dear, sweet hunter."

Jeanne is about to ask what she means, but the Doll switches to her other breast, kissing and nipping and sucking. Her whole world becomes the wet heat washing over her skin, shivering and crying out as the Doll digs her teeth in one moment only to lave her tongue over the sting the next. The Doll's hands are busy as well, one pressed against the small of Jeanne's back and the other trailing up and down her front.

The Doll alternates between Jeanne's breasts, until they're covered in love bites and painful to the touch (pain that she keeps chasing, because of the sublime static that tramples across her mind when it occurs). Jeanne is on the edge of pushing her away when the Doll kisses a blazing trail up to her neck, the hand that's stroking her stomach moving to settle on the bulge between Jeanne's legs.

Jeanne feels the world lurch, the fire and lightning and unnameable  _something_ all rushing to her restrained, aching cock. The uncomfortable stone beneath her, the sweat collecting on her back, the angry marks on her breasts - all of it fades into the background, becoming fuzzy and indistinct as the Doll's hands work to undo Jeanne's belts. Leather rasps against cloth and then Jeanne lifts herself up, letting the Doll tug on her trousers until they slide off of her hips, collecting around her knees.

Two things strike her in quick succession, the first of which is that the Doll undressed her fully (such as it is.) Jeanne's cock is jutting upwards, hard and dripping, the head slick and pulsing in time with her shallow breathing. The second is that the Doll is whispering into her hair, right next to her ear, one of her hands tapping on Jeanne's bare thigh. It takes a long moment to pull herself together - to ignore how close the Doll's hand is to her cock - and Jeanne's frowns at the fragment that she hears.

"- let my hunter be safe, let her find comfort."

The Doll must notice, because she stops talking, taking Jeanne's earlobe between her teeth at the same time she wraps her fingers around Jeanne's length. The lightning comes back, collecting in her stomach and then racing up her throat as she says "fuck,fuck,  _fuck!_ "

The Doll tugs on her earlobe and strokes her cock, humming as she slowly works her fingers across the head of Jeanne's shaft. They feel - they don't feel like they  _look_. It's as if another person's hand is touching her, all soft, smooth skin that lacks the segmented knuckles of the Doll's porcelain construction. It makes the  _something_  in Jeanne's head stir, but she can't bring any of it to bear, because the Doll brushes her hair aside and starts to suck on her neck.

Jeanne is being stretched between two peaks, the Doll's lips and tongue making her keen like she's in heat, and the Doll's hand making that a reality, every upstroke pulling Jeanne's hips with it as she tries to find a harsher pace. Pressure is building and it's becoming impossible to cobble together a coherent thought, each attempt blown apart by the Doll's thumb stroking over the head of her cock. Each stroke is accompanied by a depraved wet sound, Jeanne's arousal soaking the Doll's palm.

"Oh, dear hunter." The Doll says, reverent and composed, as if they're simply watching the moon's eternal watch. Her kisses are open-mouthed and scorching, each one making Jeanne jolt where she sits, canting her hips to try and relieve herself. The Doll strokes her cock faster, and says "my dear, precious hunter."

Jeanne sobs, held up by the Doll and lost to everything that isn't this small corner of the dream. Her gloved hand finds purchase, fingers curving around the edge of a stone, and her other wraps around the Doll's neck, yanking her up into a kiss that would bruise another human. The Doll squeaks in surprise and Jeanne growls, a deep rumble from her chest that melts into a high pitched whimper as the Doll gives her cock a slow, firm stroke. The sudden change throws Jeanne off balance, even more so when the Doll returns to her quick pace.

And that's all it takes.

The orgasm slams into Jeanne like a piece of thrown masonry, unavoidable and all consuming. Her eyes slam shut and white flashes across her vision, a wave of sudden ecstasy crashing through. She's panting into the Doll's mouth, the brutal kiss becoming a slow exploration of the silken lips that have been teasing her all evening. The Doll kisses back, licking into Jeanne's mouth even as continues to stroke her cock, guiding her back to the ground.

Jeanne pulls away to breathe, shuddering in the Doll's grasp. Her voice is just out of reach, washed away by the tide, and she doesn't feel a need to pull it back in from the shoals. Instead, Jeanne nuzzles the Doll's cheek, kissing it absentmindedly as the Doll stops stroking her. The orgasm is tapering off, leaving behind a woman made debris, though stars are still bright and flashing in front of Jeanne's eyes.

The Doll hums, switching between chasing Jeanne's lips with her own and nuzzling her mussed hair. Jeanne coos, over and over again, the alternating touches keeping her locked in the pleasurable torture of aftershock, recovery, aftershock. The Doll gently rocks her back and forth, an anchor in the storm still on the edge of Jeanne's person. The uneasiness from before, the sense that the Doll is  _wrong_ , has all but vanished.

Time drags on in circles, as it always does in the dream, and Jeanne slowly comes back to herself. The Doll is tireless in her ministrations, and Jeanne lost count of the number of sweet nothings she whispered into her ear. With a weak, hoarse voice, she says "when the fuck did you learn how to do  _that_."

The Doll laughs, shaking her head and kissing Jeanne's forehead. Her lips are still as soft as they were when all of this started, and feel cool against the sweat soaked expanse of Jeanne's skin. She hums and says "countless hunters have visited this dream, and I have loved all of them. Many of them thought to love me back, as you might."

"Never said you proved me wrong." Jeanne says, feeling herself drifting, mind cradled by a fuzzy warmth that's making her eyes heavy. The Doll tut-tuts, smiling as she pulls Jeanne into her lap and onto her voluminous skirts. It isn't a bed, but it feels closer to home than Jeanne's been in a heart-wrenching stretch of time. She curls into the Doll, a phantom of pleasure making her shiver, and says "cheating."

"It is time for you to rest, dear hunter." The Doll says, petting her hair and humming a familiar Yharnam lullaby. Jeanne doesn't argue further, because she's right. The night is deep yet and the Hunt still roaring through the city streets. There's time enough to dream, in safety and of an early dawn.


End file.
